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The undoubted tendency of an adoption of Anarchy would be, however,
to minimize the possibility of unsocial conduct of the character
under discussion, if not to abolish it altogether. Fraternally yours,

William Bailie.⁠

CHILDREN UNDER ANARCHY.

[Liberty, September 3, 1892.]

Nearly the whole of this issue of Liberty is devoted to the
important question of the status of the child under Anarchy.
The long article by Clara Dixon Davidson has been in my
desk, unopened, for several months. On examining it the
other day, I was surprised and delighted to find that a woman
had written such a bold, unprejudiced, unsentimental, and
altogether rational essay on a subject which women are
especially prone to treat emotionally. I am even shamed a little
by the unhesitating way in which she eliminates from the
problem the fancied right of the child to life. My own difficulties,
I fear, have been largely due to a lingering trace of this
superstition. The fact is that the child, like the adult, has no
right to life at all. Under equal freedom, as it develops
individuality and independence, it is entitled to immunity from
assault or invasion, and that is all. If the parent neglects to
support it, he does not thereby oblige any one else to support
it. If others give it support, they do so voluntarily, as they
might give support to a neglected animal; there is no more
obligation in the one case than in the other.

I also welcome as important Comrade Bailie's contribution
to the discussion. In one view the question of the status of
the child under Anarchy is a trivial one,—trivial because the
bugbears that surround it are hypothetical monsters, and
because such ugly realities as do actually confront it are put to
rout by the new social conditions which Anarchy induces.
Even at present comparatively few parents are disposed to
abuse or neglect their children, and in the absence of poverty
and false notions of virtue their number will be infinitesimal
and may be safely neglected. The question is one that vanishes as we approach it.

The chief value of its discussion is found in the light which
it throws on the matter of equal freedom. Hence I am glad
that it was brought forward by my friend the school-teacher,
whose questions I answered in No. 232, and who now rejoins
with the following letter: